Ava: The Secret Conversations Off-Broadway Reviews

Her performance captures with precision the voice that emerges in the book: mercurial; still vain but gloomy about her diminished looks; instinctively or merely reflexively seductive and flirtatious. But, more enjoyably, also self-deprecating, realistic about her wayward path through life, and, as noted, flaunting a vocabulary heavily larded with salty humor. It’s an accomplished performance that captures the woman in all her complexities and contradictions.

Nearly always barefoot, McGovern shines in Ava’s skin, relishing the quirkiness and entitlement that comes with having been famous and beautiful. (Argues Evans’s agent, played by Chris Thorn, when the journalist tries to protest the ghostwriting assignment: ‘Of course she’s bonkers! She was the biggest star in the world!’)

McGovern delivers a capable performance, laced with dark humor, with Gardner flirting provocatively with her interviewer and reflecting ruefully on the failed relationships in her life… But she’s never quite convincing as the legendary beauty, and the writing… fails to provide much depth or illumination.

What Gardner is shorn of in McGovern’s piece are too many of the quotes that might have come up in a straightforward interview. That’s way too unfortunate. Here for the record is only one lively remark: ‘I do owe Mickey one thing: he taught me how much I enjoyed sex.’

Ms. McGovern’s performance is immaculate in its detail, from her alternately slinky and strained movements, evoking Ava at different stages of life, to the way her ultra-polished, almost stilted pronunciation… can slide back into a Southern drawl when conversation turns to her youth, or when she’s piqued.

McGovern acutely embodies Gardner’s magnetism and toxicity. Foul-mouthed and flirty in her youth, frail and ferocious in later years, the Oscar-nominated actress (both subject and star) is a force to be reckoned with.